By Valerie S. Nosek

What Role Does Your EAP Play?

As a human resource professional, a manager/supervisor, CEO or other leader, how do you view your employee assistance program (EAP)? What role does it play in the success of your organization?

Is your EAP there to help address substance abuse in the work place, or as a required referral source for employees who test positive? Do you use the EAP for management referrals to help address job performance issues? Does the EAP exist as a benefit for employees who have problems that exist outside of work and need professional assistance? Do you use your EAP as a resource for consultation – whether seeking assistance for employee behaviors, training issues, change management or organizational development?

Ask different people within an organization what role the EAP serves and you will probably receive different answers, depending on how that individual uses the EAP. An employee may say the EAP helps with personal problems. A risk officer may say the EAP is used for drug and alcohol referrals. A manager may say the main reason for having an EAP is for performance issues and management referrals. Someone in HR might cite several reasons for using the EAP, including training or that it’s an employee benefit. And, while all of those answers are valid, any comprehensive EAP should provide all of those services and more.

Using Your EAP to Support Organization Goals

We encourage those of you in HR, management and other leadership positions to rethink your view of the EAP in the workplace. Go beyond the limited role many EAPs are relegated to and start asking, “What additional value can the EAP bring to our company?”

In fact, we challenge you to begin thinking of your EAP as a strategic partner in the success of your organization.

Of course, your EAP should assist your employees in the traditional sense of an EAP. However, as a leader in your company, expand your vision of the EAP…How can it help you to be a better manager? Meet departmental performance objectives? Assist with change initiatives? Or act as a consultant in organizational development?

What Else Can the EAP Do?

In addition to counseling and substance abuse referrals, an EAP should be able to offer the following:

• Education for Managers/Supervisors about how to use the EAP for both better employee management and “soft” referrals.
• Training and education programs developed and facilitated by proven, quality subject matter experts.
• Leadership development, mentoring and individual coaching programs.
• Conflict resolution and mediation.
• Assistance with policy writing and review.
• Consultation on organizational development projects, such as performance management and needs analysis.
• Management consultations.
• Change management support.
• Critical incident stress debriefings.
• Health fair planning and coordination.
• Assistance with workplace wellness programs and initiatives.

The ability to offer the comprehensive services listed above allows an EAP to be more than a referral source…more than an employee benefit.

Your EAP should strive to understand your business and culture; understand your managers and employees; and seek to understand your organization’s strengths and vulnerabilities, so they can better serve your needs.

At Ease@Work we consider these aspects of understanding to be an advantage in preparing a meaningful approach in how we assist our client organizations, their managers and leadership. We are well-prepared and ready to be an integrated part of your organization’s strategic plan. Is your EAP ready?

By Valerie S. Nosek

“Workplace safety” is an all-encompassing term that includes many different factors, all of which impact the safety and health of employees. Addressing workplace safety includes how organizations manage environmental hazards inherent to the job, working conditions, work practices and processes, drug and alcohol issues, and potential for violence.

Employers should routinely be assessing safety records and revising safety goals – not only because of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards, but also because safety directly affects a company’s bottom line. How an organization approaches workplace safety ultimately impacts profits through employee morale and retention, productivity, worker’s compensation claims, insurance rates and legal costs.

To exemplify this point as related to substance abuse and workplace safety, consider the following:

• Over 14 million Americans use illegal drugs.
• 9.4 million illicit drug-users are employed full-time.
• Over 10.1 million heavy alcohol users are employed full-time.
• As workers, they are 3.6 times more likely to be involved in an accident at work.
• They are 5 times more likely to file for worker’s compensation benefits than non-users.
• 40 percent of the time a substance user causes an accident, a co-worker is injured.
• 47 percent of industrial injuries and 40 percent of industrial deaths are directly linked to alcohol consumption – a legal drug.

Sources: W. Atkinson “EAP’s: Investments, Not Costs,” Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Performance and Behavior Issues Associated with Substance Abuse
• Inconsistent work quality
• Poor concentration
• Lowered productivity
• Increased absenteeism
• Carelessness and mistakes
• Errors in judgment
• Needless risk-taking and disregard for safety
• Extended lunch periods/early departures
• Unexplained disappearances from the job
• Theft (The Ohio BWC estimates approximately 50-80 percent of all pilferage, theft and loss is due to substance-abusing employees.)

Any one of these issues will negatively affect job performance, overall company productivity and profits – more so if problems are widespread, prolonged or not addressed by management. In the worst-case scenario, situations such as the ones mentioned above can result in liability and legal issues for the employer.

Getting Your EAP Involved in Safety

Clearly, your Employee Assistance Program (EAP) should be an integral part of any workplace safety process.

Early interventions with employee performance issues generally result in an improved prognosis for the employee, but it also makes business sense for the organization. Intervention is extremely important in regards to minimizing safety and litigation concerns, while expediting a return to normal levels of productivity.

Your EAP can help with developing Drug Free Safety Program policy and implementation. An EAP also provides convenience and confidentiality for employees who voluntarily seek help for drug/alcohol abuse, along with providing mandated counseling for management referral cases.

Of course, your EAP should be able to assist with a myriad of other work-life issues, which may also be affecting safety in the workplace. For example, if an employee is distracted due to job, home, or financial stressors, this can result in increased safety risks while on the job. Your EAP can help this employee manage the stressors, so that he/she can return to normal attention patterns, therefore reducing the safety risks associated with a lack of focus while at work.

Don’t Wait for a Crisis

Unfortunately, too often managers relegate their EAP to only addressing difficult employee issues once they have become full blown problems. And while any good EAP should be able to address critical issues, waiting negates the powerful prevention aspect of the EAP.

Activities like making suggested EAP referrals, calling to schedule a management consultation with an EAP professional and scheduling various trainings for your staff are all good proactive examples of the prevention potential of your EAP.

Need help addressing issues that are affecting workplace safety? Contact Ease@Work  find out how we might be able to help!

By Patrick Gaul

The word “domestic” might lead some business leaders to believe domestic violence (DV) is a personal issue that does not affect their workplace.  DV Awareness Month provides an opportunity to shed light on some stark realities. 

Standing Firm is an organization based in Pittsburgh PA.  Their mission is to “engage a critical mass of employers in southwestern PA in addressing partner violence as a workplace and workforce issue.” Their mission might be directed toward employers in southwestern PA, but their message applies to businesses worldwide.  Here are a few facts from their website www.standingfirmswpa.com:

• One quarter (25 percent) of all workplace violence events in the U.S. each year are related to partner violence.
• When a victim of partner violence leaves the abusive partner, the one place the batterer knows the victim can be found is at work.
• Batterers come to work to harass, harm or kill their victims. Not only is the victim in danger, but so are the victims’ coworkers, your customers, and others in the building.
• Ninety four percent of corporate security directors rank partner violence as a high security problem.

Domestic violence should be considered a direct concern in every workplace.

Another agency with excellent domestic violence resources is the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence (CAEPV).  Their mission is to “aid in the prevention of partner violence by leveraging the strength and resources of the corporate community.”  I added their Facebook page as a favorite on our Ease@Work Facebook page.  Feel free to visit and “like” both. Their most recent blog entry lists 10 things you can do about domestic violence.  Here are a few but see their page for the rest.

• Remember and share the National Domestic Violence Hotline number 800-799-7233 (SAFE) or www.thehotline.org.
• Visit www.loveisnotabuse.com for tips on speaking to children about healthy relationships.
• Don’t ask “Why would that victim go back?” Ask “Why would a person hit or abuse someone they love?”

A Harris Poll was conducted for Johns Hopkins Research in which 46 percent of female victims of domestic violence contacted their employee assistance program (EAP) for help.  Of this group of women who accessed their EAP because of domestic violence, 71 percent said their workplace performance improved. 

Providing a safe environment where domestic violence can be discussed confidentially with a professional is the most obvious benefit to having a quality EAP.  Besides providing a confidential professional to speak with, your EAP should also offer domestic violence training.  Employees need to know what they should do if they are victims, coworkers, managers or supervisors of victims or perpetrators. 

Most people believe that it is in a victim’s best interest to leave an abusive situation.  Encouraging somebody to leave without an adequate safety plan is a bad idea because leaving is the most dangerous time for the victim.  As I stated at the beginning of this post, it even puts the workplace at significant risk. 

As the Public Service Announcement at the beginning of this post states, the Allstate Foundation is kicking off a campaign that is designed to encourage people to talk about domestic violence and end the taboo around this issue. For more information on this campaign, visit www.clicktoempower.org.

The fact that domestic violence is taboo helps to perpetuate it.  We need to end the silence in order to end the violence. It must be done with special care though.  Use your EAP and the other resources listed in this post to reduce the risk of domestic violence in your workplace.

Workplace gossip throwing a monkey wrench in your organization's productivity?

By Valerie S. Nosek

People love talking about other people and people like hearing about other people’s business. Surprisingly, experts agree this behavior is a part of human nature. This fact explains why celebrity gossip magazines are so popular. It’s why strangers will strain to listen to juicy talk about someone they don’t even know. And, it’s also why gossip will never be completely eradicated from the work environment…but, that doesn’t mean human resource (HR) and management professionals should give up on trying to curtail workplace gossip.

 Gossip Does More Than Just Waste Time…

While most in HR and management recognize employees gossiping as a time waster that lowers productivity, some negative outcomes may not be as obvious.

A recent study by Tim Hallett, an assistant professor at Indiana University, highlights the impact of gossip in the workplace through observation of staff at a middle school going through leadership change. The year-long study documents how gossip affects management, teamwork and employee retention. Originally published as “Gossip at Work: Unsanctioned Evaluative Talk in Formal School Meetings,” in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Workforce Management reports on Hallet’s study in the article, “Gossip’s Toll on the Workplace.”

Gossip “played and important role in the construction of workplace problems and relational politics,” the study said. Hallett reported gossip undermined management’s ability to lead, it fostered resistance to change, perpetuated unnecessary drama and contributed to higher than normal employee turnover.

So, not only are individuals affected by gossip, but the workplace as a whole suffers. The following represent just a few examples of costs associated with workplace gossip:

• Lower morale
• Lack of trust
• Increased anxiety among employees
• Divisiveness as individuals “take sides”
• Irreparable damage to feelings, reputations, relationships
• Individuals who gossip viewed as unprofessional, thus jeopardizing chances for advancement
• Good employees leave due to an unhealthy work atmosphere
• Lost productivity
• Damage to organization’s reputation
• Damage to individual’s/employee’s reputation
• Possible legal issues

Confronting Gossip

Do not participate in gossip. If conversation drifts toward something you feel is leaning toward rumor, redirect the discussion. If this doesn’t work, let the person or group know directly that you will not participate in this type of conversation and excuse yourself from the conversation.

According to “Workplace Gossip,” written by Kit Hennessy, LPC, CEAP, “This will serve several purposes. It will send a message to the gossipers that what they are doing is not acceptable. Others who feel the same way as you do will be more likely to follow suit and not become involved with the gossip, thus taking away the audience. And lastly, you will feel good that you have said ‘no’ to something that wastes time and could cause harm.”

Leaders often make a mistake in pretending not to know about gossip or thinking that by admitting knowledge of the rumors adds credence to them. Instead, managers need to be attune to the grapevine and willing to take action.

One way to do this is by building good relationships with staff. In this way, staff members will be comfortable talking to you as a manager when they hear something that doesn’t seem quite right, or is unquestionably gossip. Keeping communication open is essential in limiting the rumor mill.

“One thing employees may gossip about is what management is or isn’t doing. Rather than allowing speculation to turn into misinformation, consider communicating regularly with your employees about what’s going on in your workplace, at least about things that don’t have to remain confidential for some reason. Open communication may stop some of the rumormongers from making up information. Moreover, the gossipers’ influence will be minimized because everyone – or at least those who need to be – will be “in-the-know.” When employees believe they have sufficient information, they’ll spend less time gossiping and more time working.”

- From “What Can HR Do About Workplace Gossip?” HR Hero, Sept. 1, 2009.

It may also be appropriate to address the issue of gossip in your Code of Conduct or disciplinary policy, where, through formal review and education, the organization can make employees aware that malicious gossip or other behaviors that create discord are subject to progressive disciplinary action as per policy. You may want to include a statement that clearly prohibits remarks about “the organization, co-workers, customers, competitors, agents or partners that could be considered harassing, threatening, libelous or defamatory in any way.” (“What Can HR Do About Workplace Gossip?” HR Hero, Sept. 1, 2009.)

Rely on your employee assistance program (EAP) for help in addressing workplace issues and problem employee behaviors that impact job performance. Ease@Work, a comprehensive EAP, offers consultation with a dedicated account manager and/or a clinical manager regarding workplace and employee concerns.

Being Late is Bad Business for All Involved

By Valerie S. Nosek

The meeting invitation indicated a start time of 10:00 a.m. I gather my materials, grab a cup of coffee and head to the conference room, arriving a little less than five minutes before the meeting is scheduled to start. I settle into my seat, prep my materials and wait…and wait…and wait.

It’s now 10:10 a.m. and I’m still the only one in the room. Even the person who scheduled the meeting has not arrived. I begin to doubt whether the information I had was correct. Perhaps the meeting was cancelled and I missed the notification?

Just as I’m thinking this, two other people walk into the room. The individual facilitating the meeting still has not arrived. It will be 10:16 a.m. before he manages to roll into the room, excuses falling out of his hands in the form of copies he had to print, which he says made him late.

Punctuality Starts at the Top

I recently had a conversation about people being late to meetings with a friend, who also happens to be a very successful leader in his organization. He, too, has an issue with people who are late to scheduled meetings, saying this behavior is disrespectful to everyone involved in the meeting. At the most basic level, being late says, “I really don’t care about your time; it’s not valuable to me.”

My friend, unfortunately, is in the minority though when it comes to CEO’s and their record for being timely. According to a 2002 survey of 2,700 chief executives by Proudfoot, CEO’s are late to meetings 60 percent of the time. And, it’s suspected that the “late rate” percentage would be higher, except that most CEO’s are “punctual to meetings with important clients.”

What some leaders may fail to realize though, is that like so many other desirable workplace behaviors, punctuality starts at the top. Managers/supervisors who are chronically late send a message to their staff that wasted time and inconsiderate behavior is tolerated within the organization.

And, we also know there are leaders who may take advantage of their status with a “Do as I say, not as I do” attitude. But this approach isn’t even a good idea with children, so why would it be appropriate in the workplace? Furthermore, a leader who strives for excellence would never use this approach regarding expectations for those they supervise.

Employees will quickly lose respect for the leader who does not model the work ethics and behaviors expected of all employed by the organization. On the flipside, leaders who are good role models may be labeled as “tough,” or having high expectations, but they are also the ones who are typically respected, develop staff loyalty and have good morale within their division/department.

Time is Money

It may be a cliché, but it’s also true. How much money is wasted every year by meetings that start late?

Think about your organization and calculate:

• How often meetings are held?
• Number of staff involved?
• Hourly rates for each staff member involved?
• How many minutes it typically takes to actually start the meeting?

If meetings are run efficiently within your company – great! But if not, you might be surprised at how much all that time is actually costing. And, while this amount may indicate significant internal losses, also consider the outside client who is kept waiting.

If it’s a prospective client, they may view your/or your employee’s tardiness as indicative of how your organization delivers product or services and choose to contract with another vendor. Similarly, a current client may switch vendors if they feel their time (interpret as their “business”) is not valued.

Sending the message – “It’s not OK to be late”

If chronic tardiness is an issue in your organization, and you are in management or often lead meetings, try these suggestions:

• If you are in leadership, a manager/supervisor, or the meeting organizer, do not be late.
• Do not wait for people arriving late. Start the meeting on time.
• If you can, close (or lock) the door. Those arriving late will have to make more of an effort to join the meeting and it will be very clear that their tardiness has been noticed.
• After the meeting, and in private, have a conversation with each offender and clearly explain your expectations regarding punctuality.
• Following the one-on-one conversation, consider any future offenses documentation worthy. Keep track of these offenses and report/consider them (as appropriate) when evaluating job performance.

As an employee assistance program, Ease@Work can offer expert guidance in employee issues that impact workplace performance and productivity. We also offer consultation and coaching for leaders seeking guidance on a variety of workforce management issues.

Assessing Training Needs, Setting Expectations, Measuring Outcomes

By Valerie S. Nosek

As a comprehensive Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with an extensive training catalog, it’s not unusual to receive a number of calls every week from various organizations requesting training for employees, managers/supervisors and yes, even executive leadership. Providing effective employee education is an important part of what we do – that’s why we ask probing questions about the instigating need, specific objectives, participants to be included, work culture/environment and more, when approaching a training engagement. These initial questions usually lead to a revealing conversation that allows us to match training with needs and secure the best suited subject matter expert to facilitate the program.    

It would be very easy to simply say, “Oh yes, we can provide ‘X’ training,” schedule the workshop and be done with it. But, as Benjamin McCall said in his recent post, “How to be an HR Ninja: Uncover Training Needs,” providing effective educational programs in the workplace is so much more than just providing “the training.”

Like McCall, we firmly believe that “training, and the learning that takes place, should engage all members of the organization to increase performance while aligning learning objectives to the overall goals of the business.”

Providing training without a formally expressed expectation of retention or application of what was learned is wasteful of company resources, yet, too often this is how training programs are presented. Effective employee educational programs should lead to sustainable change or improvement of a skill set, on the part of the individual(s) involved.

Furthermore, it is critical to review and assess that the training chosen matches the philosophy of the organization. For example, a client may say they want their middle management staff to be more assertive in decision-making, but then upper management or executive leadership micro-manages when it comes down to actually allowing middle managers to make independent decisions. Training that does not match the culture of the organization not only wastes time and money, but can also result in frustration and lowered morale for employees who were engaged in the training and are then blocked from applying what they’ve learned.

McCall also makes a great point in saying that “Just because people WANT training doesn’t mean they need it and just because they NEED training doesn’t mean they want it.” And it is this statement that is at the center of why any training provider committed to offering effective educational programs should ask those probing questions prior to scheduling training.

It’s very common to receive a request for one type of training, only to discover after an exploratory discussion that the training need is something different than originally thought. Let’s take the hypothetical case of the manager whose team seems to be experiencing an increased amount of conflict and is not acting as a cohesive unit:

We receive a call from the human resource contact at Company XYZ asking for a teambuilding session for one of their divisions. The HR professional says the division’s manager reported that suddenly, members of the group are not getting along and it’s impacting productivity. They need to learn how to work better as a team. We ask for a phone consultation with the manager and anyone else who should be included in determining what outcome is desired from the training.

During a conversation with the manager and his assistant manager, we find the company has recently reorganized some positions and this division was affected. While the team members are the same, their responsibilities have shifted. We also find out that before the changes, the group functioned well and without conflict. The managers acknowledge some employees are having difficulty adjusting to their new roles, but feel they are all valuable and capable of the performance expected.

After this discussion, it becomes apparent the problem is not that the group doesn’t know how to function as a team or that there are members of the group creating conflict. Instead, the employees within the division are having difficulty adjusting to the changes that have taken place.

In a best case scenario, a teambuilding workshop may have reinforced skills this group already knew, but still would not have been the best use of training funds. On a less positive note, bringing teambuilding training to a group who knew they were able to work well together before reorganization could have potentially caused more problems, such as lowered morale or hostility, as employees might feel the blame for lost productivity was misplaced: “We didn’t have any problems until the ‘bigwigs’ decided to do it this way instead of how we were doing it before. Now they’re blaming us that it’s not working when it was their idea.”

A program on change management was more applicable to the division’s needs. Employees were resistant to the changes that had taken place and just wanted things to “go back to the way they were before.” However, a change management session allowed employees to recognize the stages of change, determine where they were in terms of acknowledging and accepting change individually, and learn how to move forward so that the group could return to the exceptional levels of performance expected of them.

Ease@Work can help you address your company’s training, coaching and organizational development needs. Our programs are thoughtfully tailored to your organization, using a variety of methods, some of which might include phone or in-person consultation, needs assessments or use of focus groups. Skills retention can be assessed through pre- and post-testing, assessing application of training 30-, 60-, or even 90-days out.

By Swan Khanna-Salehi, LISW, LICDC, CEAP, SAP, Ease@Work Clinical Manager 

A drug-free workplace is an expectation of every organization and the right of every employee.  The degree to which an organization makes efforts to assure a drug-free workplace varies significantly.  In some cases, the organization assumes that their employees are not abusing drugs on the job and figures that their managers would be able to identify substance abusing  employees. This is probably the most common reason that I hear from organizations that do not have a formal drug-free workplace program. 

If this is the case in your organization, consider this question.  Do you utilize hair testing for pre-employment drug testing?  Wouldn’t a casual drug user stop using while job hunting?  If they were smart they would.  You hire smart employees don’t you?  According to Omega Laboratories, Inc. the typical detection window for urine testing is 2-3 days.  THC, the active drug in marijuana, is the one major exception which can be detected in urine for up to 20 days.  How long is the average job search?  Longer than 20 days?  Even if you are utilizing pre-employment drug testing, only the more expensive hair test will detect illicit drug use for up to 90 days. 

You want to be sure you do not hire substance abusers, but pre-employment testing is only one element in establishing a drug free workplace.  It is also important to discourage the abuse of drugs and alcohol among your current employees with random drug testing.  The less expensive option of urine testing is effective here because of the element of surprise. 

Your EAP is a very important component of any drug free workplace and there are several ways your drug-free workplace program should be benefiting from your EAP.  Even if you do not drug test at all, your EAP can help to reduce the incidence of substance abuse in the workplace in a number of ways.

• Drug free workplace policy: Your EAP can review your drug free policy to ensure that it is effective and can help you to establish one if you do not currently have such a policy. 
• Employee education: Employees need to be told what substance abuse is and that the company does not allow it.  The policy makes this official, but you should have your EAP spend at least an hour per year providing substance abuse education to your employees.  Questions about prescription drugs are among the most common at these employee trainings.  Can a prescription drug generate a legitimate positive drug test?  Yes!  An out-of-date prescription will not overturn a positive drug test.  If an employee is prescribed a pain medication for an injury that resolves before the prescription is finished, they might keep the remainder “just in case.”   Is it safe to take that medication several months later?  Maybe, but maybe not.  It is possible that this employee may have had changes in their diet or health that may cause a different reaction than what they experienced when the prescription was current.  A more serious complication could be caused by an adverse drug interaction with a new prescription, over-the-counter drug or herbal remedy. 
• Supervisor education: According to the article “Bad habits on campus: how to deal with staff and faculty who are addicts , ” in the July 1, 2008 issue of University Business, “Issues of discrimination or retaliation will pop up when supervisors or managers act as unlicensed Psychiatrists.”  According to Alan Cohn, LISW and director of faculty, staff and employee relations at the University of Virginia it is “a liability, a legal issue” for a supervisor to jump to the wrong conclusion about drug abuse.  A well trained supervisor is better prepared to identify and deal with a substance abusing employee.  They will also have more confidence when dealing with reasonable suspicion.  One thing that supervisors learn from our supervisor education sessions is that they can call us at any time, 24/7 for a management consultation with a counselor to discuss a difficult employee issue whether it pertains to substance abuse,   psychological change or any other employee behavioral issue. 
• A confidential, no-cost solution for employees: Perhaps the most important way your organization should be benefiting from an EAP is by giving your employees the means to get help on their own.  Many substance abusers want to be freed from an addiction but do not know where to turn.  Even if you have a “last chance agreement” policy, fear is still a significant barrier to approaching management about substance abuse.  An EAP will make any workplace safer because of this feature, but a workplace with random drug testing will benefit in multiples from the EAP because the random testing provides significant additional motivation to seek help.

BWC Discounts: According to Ease@Work Sales Manager Patrick Gaul, the majority of calls to Ease@Work for information about substance abuse related services used to be from businesses interested in discounts from the Ohio BWC.  The BWC DFWP program was an especially good incentive when they used to encourage all businesses to participate in the program by offering discounts from 10-20% for establishing a Drug Free Workplace Program that met their standards.  As of last year the Ohio BWC took this incentive away from thousands of Ohio companies by disqualifying those which   already receive another discount, including a group rating.  Apparently there are more changes in the works.  According to an email update that Patrick received from Advocare, Inc., a Cleveland-based group health and workers’ compensation managed care organization, “It is very likely a new drug-free safety program will replace the existing Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation’s (BWC) program by July 1, 2010.”  The update went on to say that the potential changes are a mixture of good news and bad for DFWP companies.  For example they are considering elimination of the stacking rule, but only for companies at the advanced level which requires random testing of 25% of the workforce.  They are also considering elimination of the 5 year limit for the discount program, but the discounts will be reduced to 4-7%.  If you would like to receive industry updates from Advocare, you can reach them at www.advocare-inc.com.

By Patrick Gaul

According to Wikipedia, critical mass is a threshold value of the number of people needed to trigger a phenomenon by exchange of ideas. (Sorry Andy, our website / social media guru, you told me to avoid citing Wikipedia, but hey, this is an article about social networking.  I thought it was appropriate.) Anyway, it appears to me that social media has blown past critical mass. It is clearly a phenomenon. At what point though will social media be considered a mainstream tool for management? I believe it’s safe to say that we’re not there yet.

The Social Networking phenomenon was born because of teenagers on MySpace. That seems to be the excuse that most social media-phobes fall back on when explaining why they aren’t utilizing it. “It’s just a bunch of kids finding out where the party is.” In reality, MySpace did have a practical application for one industry, but the fact that MySpace is the music distribution method of choice for Indie rock bands throughout the world doesn’t exactly endear it to the MBA set. 

The fact that Ease@Work is blogging is proof that social media has reached critical mass.  When our target audience (anybody managing employees) starts reading this blog in large numbers and utilizing it to exchange ideas, I will believe that social media has reached critical mass as a tool for management. (Believe me, we’re not there yet. I’m patient though. It’s only been 7 months.)

I’m not so naïve to believe that the Ease@Work blog will ever be the go-to place for cutting edge management information on the Internet. There are some great tools out there though and you can connect with Ease@work on a number of them.

LinkedIn (LI) is, in my opinion, the best way to begin utilizing social media as a manager or HR person. I have been on LI for years and have met many great people. The magic of LI is the way in which it helps other people to help you. If you have a need for anything that somebody else in the world can help you to find, there is somebody in LI who has the answer. I have over 250 contacts and I am no LION (Linkedin Open Networker), meaning that I don’t accept invitations from people that I don’t know or have some sort of business or personal connection with. 

I utilize my connections to help others more than helping myself, and I never forward any information that I consider an unsolicited advertisement. If somebody has a valid business reason to reach out to one of my contacts, I will contact that person privately explaining the request. If they are not interested, I will politely tell the requestor that my contact is not interested. I would rather offend a salesperson than a valued business connection. (I have found however, that few people use LI to sell their product or service. To me, it is a genuine networking tool and most people understand that to use it for anything but networking will quickly ruin your LI reputation.) 

If you are interested in connecting with me on LI, follow this link to my profile.  You can also find other Ease@Work staff on LI, along with other potentially valuable connections.

Facebook is getting more useful as a business-networking site, but to me its strength is still in personal networking. However, I do like the fan page feature for business purposes and find it’s a great way to share information about Ease@Work. I especially like that you can tie your FB page to a blog. If you are on FB and want to know when Ease@Work has posted a new blog entry, become a fan of the Ease@Work FB Page.

The HR Net: For those of you in HR, if you are not familiar with Steve Browne’s HR Net, I encourage you to check it out. This is an old-school bulletin board where HR people can post questions for other HR people, or they can promote happenings in the HR community. Steve sends a weekly e-mail that begins with an entertaining HR related song parody, followed by a list of the new posts from the past week.

HR Net is a password-protected site. To get your password and a link to the site, e-mail Steve Browne at sbrowne@larosas.com. If you are looking to network within the HR Community, Steve is the guy to know in Ohio.

Ideas and people are two very important components in success as a manager. I encourage you to embrace anything that helps you build a network of people who can help you be successful in your job.

There are a million other ways to use technology to share ideas and meet new people. If you have any suggestions of things that work for you, please feel free to tell us in a comment. 

When mental illness enters the workplace

by Patrick Gaul

The Society for Human Resource Management recently published an article of offbeat or humorous stories related by HR Managers to SHRM Online.  One example was a request by a Wiccan employee for time off work to celebrate the Winter Solstice.  The request was granted and the Manager “received [an] education on maintaining an objective perspective and to not pass judgment.” 

The article then went on to describe a few other anecdotes submitted to SHRM Online and ended with a story recounted by an HR Director describing a valuable employee who had requested that the company

“…somehow protect him from the alien rays that were shooting at him from his computer and slowly killing him” 

At this point, my EAP filter kicked in and I immediately thought, “Great, a story about how the EAP saved the day. She’s going to get this guy some help, right?”  Wrong.  The article went on to describe the HR Director’s resolution. 

“So I sent the office manager to a medical supply store and we purchased one of those large lead dental protectors and I convinced the employee that by putting that apron over his computer when he was not there would keep all ‘rays’ from coming through to him…  Yup, he bought that and stayed with us for another few years”

I imagine many people reading the article found this funny.  I can appreciate this type of humor, especially if it was in a movie like Office Space.  In that movie, Milton clearly had some problems, but he is one of my all time favorite characters and I have no problem finding humor in his disturbed personality.  What’s the difference?  Milton is a character!  I think that people today have a hard time understanding the difference between the way fictitious characters are treated and the way people should be treated in real life.

According to Ease@Work Counselor Sandra Lavelle, the employee fearing the alien rays “is likely to suffer from a serious and chronic mental illness and this company’s solution in reality is not that simplistic nor appropriate.” She went on to say this story “…speaks to the ignorance of mental illness by the general working public as well as management in Human Resources” 

I know that these might sound like harsh words, but why is it that companies are more concerned about liability exposure presented by an employee requesting a non-traditional religious holiday than they are with getting proper treatment for an employee suffering from mental illness?

As I was preparing to write this post, I received an email from a friend who is a Special Education Teacher.  She was thrilled because a parent had thanked her for being the “bright spot” in her disabled son’s life.  Apparently this child is difficult to deal with because of his special needs and most people are not as patient with him as his teacher.

If we look around, there are many examples of people mistreating other people simply because they are different.  For centuries racism and sexism were accepted and it wasn’t until very recently, in the context of history, that critical mass was reached with regard to the disapproval of blatant racism and sexism.  In many respects we have a long way to go but at least the business community can no longer discriminate on the basis of a person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. 

I am not calling for prosecution of people who make fun of mental illness or people who are impatient with special needs children.  I would like it though if people would begin to think like a professional when encountering interpersonal challenges.  A special needs child should not rely on his teacher to be the one and only “bright spot” in his day just because he does not behave like the other children.  An employee suffering from delusions should be able to get professional help when turning to his HR Director for help rather than being made fun of in a national forum for the HR industry. 

So, the question remains: How would I expect the HR Director to respond to the employee fearing alien rays which were slowly killing him through his computer? 

An evaluation by the EAP would have been a great start.   According to Lavelle, “The recommendations of this evaluation would best meet his needs pharmacologically and may give him counseling resources for therapy to best assist him  to manage his mental illness. This individual then has the best possible outcome to stay well and be a productive employee.” 

And isn’t that what being in management is all about?

Most full-service EAP’s would be happy to provide an in-service for management on ways to deal with difficult employees by utilizing the services provided by the EAP.  If your EAP will not do this, get a better EAP.  It’s that simple. Finding a better EAP is much easier than replacing a manager, addressing legal fallout, or risking personal injury from an incident in which employee behavior was treated inappropriately.

by Patrick Gaul

Building and maintaining a board of directors can be a challenge for many organizations. Ideally the motivation for a potential board member should be passion for the service your agency provides.  It is also important to have the right mix of board members.  “Diverse boards are better able to expand capacity and weather tough times” according to the article Board Diversity: Your Biggest Challenge in the May/June 2009 issue of Nonprofit World.

If you are looking at ways to improve development, why not look at the things you highlight when recruiting employees?  Are there any benefits that can be efficiently extended to board members?

I recently had a conversation with an administrator at a non-profit Ease@Work customer.  She had been telling a board member about the new fitness coaching service we had recently added to our program.  This board member was interested in this service because, like most of the US population, she was looking for help with weight loss.  

She called us to ask if they were allowed to include board members in the census of covered employees.  My immediate answer was yes, of course she could.  When I checked their contract I learned she could even do so without incurring any additional cost because adding their board members would not increase their numbers beyond the maximum allowable under our agreement.

Ann Kent, the Non-Profit Services Director at Business Volunteers Unlimited told me, while there are no laws against offering something of value to a volunteer board member, our customer should check her organization’s bylaws.  In this case, since this agency can offer our program to their board at no cost, it is highly unlikely that the bylaws will forbid it.  In most cases our agreements are based on a per employee rate.  Even then, at approximately $2 per employee per month our program should be well within any limits set in the bylaws.  

In many cases the benefits offered by your organization will be too costly to extend to your board members and may not be needed by the board member.  Health insurance comes to mind.  Your board members probably already have access to an EAP as well.  However, if they work for a large national company they probably do not have an EAP that offers as many high quality local resources like in-person fitness or nutritional consultations. When they find out how inexpensive it is, they’ll applaud you for making such a wise benefit choice.